Big data lets OEMs, dealers predict when vehicles will need service

Dealership service of Internet-connected vehicles has tended to focus on helping owners navigate entertainment offerings and driver assistance tools. But the architecture for such services offer dealerships two other big opportunities: communicating with an owner throughout a vehicle's life cycle and replacing troubled parts before they fail.

Most manufacturers provide automated notifications of recommended service and vehicle health reports through apps. General Motors and Toyota's Lexus luxury brand have more extensive systems that alert dealerships and owners when problems occur; GM can even predict failures of certain components. Tesla, which can send over-the-air vehicle fixes and updates, provides similar services.

Harnessing connected data for real-time alerts and interactions is a challenge. Even tougher is perfecting the data science of making accurate predictions about failing parts: Artificial intelligence enables comparisons of large amounts of historical data to live sensor data, with algorithms determining when or if a part might fail.

The predictive part of maintenance alerts is still in its infancy. But as data on components grow and machine learning improves, more drivers will get notices about impending failures rather than alerts about current ones.

Meanwhile, expanded alert systems are driving service lane business.

OnStar's dealer maintenance notifications, which alert dealerships that a GM vehicle has reached a recommended service interval, are wrapped into consumer mobile apps for each GM division. The apps provide monthly vehicle health updates, service scheduling tools and alerts that can predict failures of a number of components.

The predictive alerts are limited to certain systems on certain vehicles. They can anticipate failures in fuel pumps, batteries and starter systems.

"The monthly health reports and alerts include a notion of what kind of service needs your vehicle currently has," says Jim Kelly, GM's global product manager for connected vehicle health. That information, Kelly says, promotes more effective and transparent interactions between service departments and their customers. It also gives dealerships leads for service outreach to owners who are aware that their vehicle needs attention.

"People really are using the apps," says Michael Rossi, service director of Rossi Chevrolet-Buick-GMC in Washington Township, N.J. He says OnStar's notifications for regular and proactive alerts generate a steady stream of customers to contact and make vehicle recalls easier to handle.

"Sometimes you'll get a customer who's seen an alert that we can't reproduce or which might be incorrect," Rossi acknowledges. "These always make me cringe."

OnStar says false positives occur, but are rare.

Rossi says he has not seen many of the predictive alerts. GM's Kelly concurs.

"We've seen a low occurrence rate for these alerts," Kelly told Fixed Ops Journal. "But we track dissatisfying experiences. Customers covered by the proactive alerts are 50 percent less likely to experience a towing event for a failure on those components than customers who aren't."

Like other automakers, Tesla communicates service needs to owners via smartphone alerts. But because the design of Tesla vehicles owes as much to the Internet of Things as to traditional car design, its diagnostic interaction is deeper.

Tesla claims its owners can resolve 80 percent of service problems without visiting one of its 78 U.S. service centers. Rather than encouraging owners to schedule service appointments, Tesla tries to avoid or speed visits to its centers, freeing service bays to handle the most vexing problems.

The automaker says its service centers can review vehicle logs remotely to identify problems, troubleshoot with customers and order needed parts before an owner decides to bring a vehicle in for service.

Tesla sends over-the-air updates to resolve problems or reset systems. It dispatches mobile mechanics to address problems that can't be resolved remotely. It expanded its mobile service fleet by 79 percent year over year in 2018 after published reports cited customers whose vehicles posed potential safety hazards but who had to wait weeks for service appointments.

Like GM's alerts, Tesla's notifications offer predictive capabilities. A comparison of sensor and historical data can accurately predict problems with key fobs, auxiliary batteries and some powertrain components before they fail.

Lexus' Service Connect program relays information on connected-vehicle faults and service needs in real time to its dealerships and customers, says Jim Anderson, Lexus' manager of dealer performance and field technical operations. Such information, he says, "allows the dealership to reach out to the customer and give them good, reasoned advice on how serious the problem is and what to do about it."

Because the vehicle is communicating its needs, owners tend to trust the diagnosis and are more likely to return to the dealership for service, Anderson says. Like GM, Lexus offers the alerts for free for a decade after a vehicle first takes to the road in an effort to boost service customer retention.

Anderson says Lexus is exploring the delivery of over-the-air software updates and predictive diagnostics via Service Connect, but adds the brand has no timeline for adding those features.

Last year, 64 percent of the roughly 622,000 Service Connect alerts generated repair orders, Lexus says. From May to November, service revenue from those vehicles, both warranty and customer-pay, increased 46 percent over the prior seven months.

"At first we got five pings a day from the system, then 10, now 20 in about eight months," says Bill Morton, general manager of Lexus of Peoria, in Illinois. "It's definitely boosted engagement."

Morton predicts that the volume of Service Connect alerts will double in the next year. The alerts make customers more familiar with the dealership's service process and offerings, such as pickup and delivery of vehicles that need repair, Morton adds.

"They're more likely to use complimentary maintenance services because of these alerts than they were when we'd send them mailers reminding them of the service," he says. "We spend less on mailers, too."

At the same time, Morton says, the alerts help reduce unnecessary visits to the service lane.

"In the old days, you could never diagnose a problem over the phone," he says. "People might waste hours visiting the shop on what might be just a simple error message related to a loose gas cap. Now we can guide them through resolving that over the phone."